The Arab Fall (A James Acton Thriller, Book #6) (James Acton Thrillers) (6 page)

“But if
we did so, brother, would we not expose ourselves to the very element we
attempt to find?”

Tarik
looked at Jabari then nodded slowly.

“Then we
must find them in secret, and bring them to justice in secret.”

“You
mean murder?”

Tarik
looked at his little brother, then placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Justice
is never murder.” Tarik looked between his brothers, and the burial below. “We
three, and others we can trust, will protect our sacred places, and weed out
those who would desecrate the final resting places of our gods.”

Both
Fadil and Jabari smiled, their chests swollen with the pride they all felt in
their new sworn task. Tarik broke from the huddle and stepped to the edge of
the cliff, staring down at the valley below, hands on his hips, his jaw set,
his eyes alive with the prospects before him.

I
swear, almighty Cleopatra, we will let you rest in peace. And should we fail,
we will bring justice to those who would disturb you.

Nubian Desert, Egypt, University College London Dig Site

Two Days Before the Liberty Island Attack

Acton returned the Glock to Jeffrey, one of the security personnel, and
walked away from the shooting range, deciding he had had enough practice for
one day. Laura joined him, beginning to limber up for the hand-to-hand combat phase
of the training, both of them already crack shots, when Chaney came running
into the camp, holding something over his head, a huge smile on his face.

Acton
and Laura walked toward their friend and as he neared they could see he was
holding a nearly perfectly preserved clay pot. “What do you think?” he asked,
breathlessly. “I cleaned it exactly as you showed me.”

Acton
eyed the pot then took the ancient artifact. As he turned it in his hands, his
eyes narrowed. “Where’d you find this?”

“On my
morning constitutional, over the ridge, just beyond that rise.” Chaney pointed
behind the archeologists and both turned their heads to see where he was
indicating.

Acton
turned to Laura. “Have you done any surveying over there?”

She
shook her head. “No, the satellite scans showed this as the center of the town.
We decided to start here and work our way out. We won’t reach that area for
another year at least.”

“And
everything we’ve found so far is Fourth Dynasty. Around forty-five hundred years
old?”

Laura
nodded, her pony tail, tied high to keep her auburn hair out of her face and
off her neck, bouncing. “That’s right, why?”

He
handed her the pot. “What do you make of this?”

She
looked it over, her own eyes narrowing. “Interesting!”

“What?
What’s so interesting?” asked Chaney, his voice sounding frustrated and excited
at the same time.

Gunfire,
several weapons this time, erupted from behind them as the training continued,
but none of them reacted. Laura continued to examine the pot, running her
fingers over the painted symbols and figures. She looked up at Chaney.

“This is
only two thousand years old. It can’t be part of this site, it’s far too new.”

“Two
thousand years old is too
new
?”

She
nodded. “By a few thousand years. And these symbols…” Her voice drifted off as
her finger tapped on her lower lip, apparently becoming lost in thought.

“What
about the symbols?”

This
time Chaney just sounded frustrated.

“They’re
markings indicating they were carved in honor of the death of the last
pharaoh.”

“Who was
that?”

“Cleopatra,”
whispered Laura, her eyes opened wide in excitement. She looked at Acton who
was as equally excited when he suddenly frowned. “Look.” He pointed at the one
broken part of the pot, near the top lip. Laura looked, as did Chaney, leaning
in to see what the professors were looking at.

“Too
bad,” said Laura, handing the pot back to Chaney.

“What?
What’s wrong?”

“It was
fired in a modern kiln,” explained Acton. “It’s a replica. A very well done
one, still handcrafted, and perhaps several hundred years old, so nothing to be
thrown away, simply not what we were hoping for.”

“Why,
what’s so important about finding something made from Cleopatra’s time.”

“Well, archeologists
have been searching for her burial chamber for years.”

“How’s
that possible?” asked Chaney. “They found Tut and a whole bunch of other blokes
that are a hell of a lot older than this one,” he said, pointing at the female
figure on the pot. “How could they not know where she was buried only two
thousand years ago?”

Acton
shrugged his shoulders.

“Nobody
knows. That’s the mystery.”

Laura nodded
at the pot. “Why don’t you put that in the tent so we can examine it closer when
the sun is at its hottest. We’ll do our training, then go take a quick look at
the area where you found it.”

Chaney
nodded, trotting off to the air conditioned tent, as Acton and Laura resumed
their stretching.

“Do you
think we’ll find anything?” Acton asked.

“I doubt
it, but he looked so crestfallen I thought I’d throw a little hope his way.”

Acton grabbed
her by the neck and pulled her toward him, kissing the top of her head.

“That’s
one of the many reasons I love you.”

He
glanced over his shoulder and saw Chaney exit the tent, a huge smile on his
face.

Sometimes
it’s the little things.

Alexandria, Egypt

30 BC, Seven Weeks After Cleopatra’s Death

Tarik stared at the necklace shown to him by one of his shopkeepers.
It was a gorgeous piece, jade and gold with a fistful of sapphires and rubies,
in a design meant to elongate the neck, the choker style popular with his
beloved Cleopatra, and still very much so in high society since there was no
new pharaoh to define their own style, Octavian having killed Cleopatra’s son,
Caesarian. It was the end of an era. The end of the Pharaoh’s. The end of
Egypt.

He
sighed, returning his attention to the necklace, a necklace that was, in fact,
a design he could appreciate, a design he recognized.

For he
had made it.

And he
knew for a fact it was buried with his late Pharaoh’s body, he himself having
been brought in to consult on the burial as to what the finest jewels were to
bury with their fallen god. He felt a rage build in his heart as he stared at
the piece, dumbfounded. His brothers and others they had gathered over the two
moons that had passed since the sealing of the burial tomb had watched over it
day and night.

Someone
had betrayed them.

“Where
did you get this?” he asked his shopkeeper, Kontar.

Kontar
pointed at the necklace. “It’s one of yours, isn’t it?”

Tarik
nodded.

Kontar
frowned, grasping at the narrow goatee he sported in an attempt to appear a
higher caste than he actually was. “As soon as I saw it, I knew. Of course I
should know it, since I know all your work. But this one. Isn’t this…?” He
apparently dared not finish the sentence.

Tarik
nodded again, running his fingers over the piece, feeling the surge of energy
from what was once a living god whose perfect, divine skin it had graced
perhaps only days before.

“Where
did you get it?” he repeated.

Kontar
turned his nose up. “A most disagreeable creature. I’ve seen him before as he
has tried to sell his ill-gotten gains. I’ve always turned him away before,
knowing who and what he was, but this time, when he showed me what he had, I
couldn’t.” Kontar sighed, running his own fingers over the piece. “It is so
lovely, and I am certain she would have loved it had she been able to see it.”

“She is
a god. Of course she was able to see it.”

“Yes, of
course, I am certain you are right,” scrambled Kontar, touching his forehead
and looking up in apology. “It is so difficult to think in terms of the divine,
that I sometimes forget they are all knowing and all seeing. Forgive me.”

“It is
not I of whom you must ask forgiveness. Ask it in your prayers tonight.” Tarik
pointed at the necklace. “Who is this ‘disagreeable creature?’”

“His
name is Shakir. He lives in the lower quarter, a pickpocket, lowlife. But never
before have I seen him with a piece such as this. Usually just trinkets. Small
items that locals would wear, not royalty.”

“You
will take me to him.”

“Me?
You? You mean you want to go to”—Kontar paused, the look of horror on his face
almost comical—“the lower quarter?”

Tarik
nodded. “We must get to the bottom of this, and in order to do so, we must go
where the answers are.”

And
right now, those all appeared to be in the lower quarter with a petty thief
named Shakir.

Nubian Desert, Egypt, University College London Dig Site

Two Days Before the Liberty Island Attack

“So where did you find it?” asked Laura, her expert eyes scanning
the level area for any hint of something of interest. Her beloved James was at
her side, his hands on his hips as he too examined the rather plain sight, the
sand blown smooth by the wind, not a hint of vegetation, and beyond a grouping
of rocks that stretched from left to right for about fifty feet, there was
nothing.

“By the
rocks,” said Chaney, pointing. He rushed over to a spot between two decent
sized rocks and jabbed his finger at a spot on the ground. “Right here. There
was just a bit of it showing when I found it. I had to dig it out with my
hands.”

James
approached the spot carefully, examining the surroundings, as did Laura. There
was nothing obviously special about the spot, except its proximity to the
rocks, which might explain why it hadn’t been lost to the desert sands, the
rocks providing some sort of protection from the wind. Then again, the rocks
themselves were just as likely to be buried in a sandstorm, as unburied.

I
wonder which it is?

She
looked about the area, and there were no other rocks anywhere, just this
cluster, which seemed a bit odd, but definitely not out of the realm of
possibility. Her expert eye began to examine the rocks more closely as James
and their detective friend crawled around on their hands and knees, digging at
the dry sand.

There
were some high winds two nights ago…

She bit
her lip, the pattern of the sand around the rocks suggesting an easterly
direction, but not giving her any indication of whether or not these rocks had
been buried and out of sight until then, or had stood their lonely vigil for
hundreds or thousands of years, undisturbed, their elevated position merely
allowing the sand to blow past them and into the depressions surrounding them.

The
satellite photos showed that this had once been farmland rather than the barren
desert it now was. The bed of an ancient river nearby was clearly visible on the
satellite photos, and evidence of irrigation had already been found. This was a
rather smooth area, ideal for farming at the time. She crossed her arms,
stroking her chin.

“I think
these rocks were placed here.”

“What’s
that, Dear?”

“The
rocks. I think they were placed here deliberately.”

James
stopped digging, looking at the rocks surrounding him, Chaney continuing his
almost frantic attack at the sand.

“This
was farmland, right?”

Laura
nodded.

“Perhaps
they cleared the rocks from their fields, piling them here?”

Laura
scratched her wrist absentmindedly, then brushed some sand off her lap.

“Odd
place though to put them. Why not off to the sides, where they would be out of
the way? Then this entire area could be plowed without concerning yourself
about rocks.” It didn’t make sense, but only if these were the only rocks. For
all she knew there could be dozens if not hundreds buried under the sand all
around them. In two thousand years, land could become unrecognizable.

James
stepped into the center of the rocks, then slowly turned around, examining the
area.

“You’re
right, it doesn’t make sense. Unless this is supposed to mark a spot?”

Laura’s
eyebrows shot up. “Something ritualistic, perhaps?”

James
pursed his lips, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. The rocks would
be more uniform in size, more perfectly laid out. These seem to be
intentionally different, as if to disguise their purpose.” He sighed. “Assuming
they have a purpose.” He dropped to a knee, rolling aside one of the smaller
stones. He glanced under it, then at the other rocks, then back at her.

“Perhaps
we’ve been at this too long.”

Laura
chuckled, rolling the stone nearest her away from the circle and looking under
it, finding nothing.

“You
mean we’re seeing what we want to see?”

Chaney
stopped his mad digging. “Are you saying I’m wasting my time?”

The look
on his face, that of a disappointed child, made her laugh. “No, you’re not
wasting your time. It’s never a waste to explore an area where an artifact has
been found. Sometimes you find nothing, sometimes you find everything. If James
hadn’t had his team dig out the cave in Peru, he would never have found the
crystal skull that the Triarii were searching almost a thousand years for.”

“And my
students would be alive today if I hadn’t had them dig it out.”

James
pushed another stone, this one larger, out of the way, his anger and sadness at
the memories still too raw.

“Sorry,
Dear, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

James
flashed her a weak smile, then pushed another stone out of the way. “Don’t
worry about it, it’s something I need to deal with. Eventually I’ll be able to
talk about it, but not yet.”